I think you're overvaluing Willy. Zucker is the most underrated forward imo and spurgeon is a 1d

I read the article as well and I've proposed a close to identical trade in the past as they talked about in the article (Nino, Spurgeon (half retention) and a 2nd for Nylander and Leivo). The problem is that the Leafs can't take both of their contracts since the whole point of trading Nylander would be that they wouldn't be able to sign Matthews and Marner and be under the cap. Basically if they took on Nino (or Zucker as you've proposed) and Spurgeon, that would give them over $10M in cap which is contradictory towards the idea of moving Nylander. Now, if you retain half of Spurgeon's contract and took a depth forward from TOR (I used Leivo in my trade since I think he could really benefit from more minutes and we could play him on the 3rd line) this works perfectly. Leafs take on $6,918,750 in cap (using Zucker they'd take on $7,168,750 which might be a little too much for them) so they'd free up about $1M to use for Matthews and Marner.

I know you'd much rather keep Nino but I just think Zucker's speed is way too valuable for our team. We've been torched by these young fast skaters and losing Zucker makes us even slower, even if you added Nylander. Zucker has been one of our best players these first 6 games so trading him could cause us to lose some of the momentum we've gained the past 2 games or so. If TOR wants Zucker instead of Nino along with Spurgeon, we had better be getting more back than just Nylander. Not sure what exactly, though.

Don't think this is fair to the Wild. It is almost there but I don't think Zucker goes. His numbers have increased each year. He had a 30 goal year last season and has looked incredible to start this season out. If he keeps it up, him at that contract for 5 years is a steal.

Lots of parts to this trade . 1. What does Nylander sign for? Certainly the Wild shouldn't overpay him. 2, Is Nylander that much better Zucker? 3. Leafs would have to do anyother move just for cap space, in order to pay their performance bonuses this year.
The Wild are getting just NHLer and giving up two in return. Don't think it helps them this year or maybe even next year.